Saturday, June 13, 2015

Hollis "Fast Five" - USATF NE 5k road champs

USATF New England 5k road
championships – The Hollis “fast five” hosted the NE championships for the
second time in three years. This race is unusual in a few ways, it is held on a
Thursday night, it is point-to-point, and it is all downhill.

I met up with teammate Dan
Verrington and we headed to Hollis right after work. That got us to the race
start line nearly two hours before the start but it did avoid any
headache/worries about traffic. Better two hours early than 2 minutes late. We
hung out in the shade and passed the time people watching.

Sometimes training buddy Doug
D and his pal Jason rolled up just as we were about to warm-up so we had a good
group for our three mile run. Teammate Dave La caught us as he was running from
the finish to the start for his warm-up. It was right around 90 degrees and the
wind was blowing at 10-20 mph. Not exactly ideal conditions for a fast run, but
you get what you get.

I changed into racing flats
and did another mile of running and threw in a couple of strides to get the
blood flowing. Then it was off to the line to join the masses. I had figured
out that my goal time

would put me somewhere between 60-100th place
so I got into the fourth row (with Dan right behind me). By lining up on the
left side of the start we avoided the crush as people ran the tangent to take
the first right turn. The course only has three turns; unfortunately the first
two are in the first ¼ mile of the race and the other one is with about 25
meters to go. I got out with no trouble and was passed by some who started
further back on the line. I was also passing some of the fast starters, but by
¾ of a mile things were pretty much shaken out as people found their
pace.

I hit the mile in 5:14 in
82nd place. I had hoped to run 5:10 to 5:15 pace so I was in the
ballpark. Dan went by me at about ½ mile and he looked strong. I kept him in
my sights but was also looking ahead to Craig Fram and a few other 50+ runners
who weren’t that far ahead. I had a good second mile (5:13) hitting the 2 mile
mark in 72nd place. I had passed Dan and Craig during that mile but
knew they wouldn’t be far behind if I faltered. The heat and the pace were
making it hurt. I tried to latch onto teammate Arthur Besse but never quite got
with him.

The last mile was marked out
with signs every ¼ mile which can be a good thing or bad thing depending on the
day you are having. I was hurting and at one point thought “I must have passed
the ¾ to go sign” when in fact I hadn’t. Ugh! Despite struggling I was only
passed by 2 runners in the final mile (and I passed 2) so I maintained my
72nd place to the finish line. The final (slow) mile was a 5:29 and
I crossed the finish line in 16:30.2 which was a bit of a disappointment. After
seeing the results I can’t really be disappointed by my place. I ended up
5th in the 50-54 so no complaints about that.

We finished the day with a
warm-down run back to the car (at the start line). Second place finisher Dan
Vassallo and top 45 runner Greg Putnam joined us for about a mile and at some
point realized that we were running back to the start (we assumed they were
doing the same), so that got a pretty long warm-down!